Ceri Sunu - Mastering Your Own Time

Your job can give you purpose, structure, and a handy answer to “what do you do?” but what happens when that label no longer fits? I’m joined by Ceri Sunu, an accidental fundraiser turned entrepreneur and CEO of Brabble, an inclusion consultancy serving arts, culture, heritage, and creative organisations. Ceri shares the real story behind leaving the charity sector, building a portfolio career, and learning how to “master my own time” without letting work take over her identity.

She opens up about time poverty, unexpected outcomes, and why creating from rest matters more than forcing productivity. Ceri explains why one-off diversity and inclusion initiatives don't lead to embedded inclusion, why inclusive recruitment needs a repeatable strategy, and how better business modelling and more commercial practices can help charities survive.

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You can find more details about The Recruitment Reboot on the Brabble website.

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Jane Curtis, founder of The Charity Freelancing Course, host of The Other Side Podcast and Co-founder of The Rich & Restored Movement. 

Jane has spent 26 years in the charity sector, is a former events fundraiser, and now supports over 100 charity sector freelancers to build businesses that make more money with joy and integrity.

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Transcript

Welcome To The Other Side

Jane Curtis 0:28

Welcome to the other side, the Charity Freelancers podcast. I'm Jane Curtis and this is where we explore the journey from charity professional to thriving freelancer or founder. Each week I chat with people who've made this leap from the charity sector, sharing invaluable practical tips and incredible insights firsthand. Whether you're considering making the move or you're already on your self-employed journey and want to know what goes on behind the scenes of well-known freelance businesses, you're in the right place. So let's kick off today's conversation. A self-proclaimed accidental fundraiser, Ceri Sunu made the leap into the world of entrepreneurship in 2017 and has been adventuring ever since. Director and CEO at Brabble, the GoTo Inclusion Consultancy for Arts, Culture, Heritage and Creative Organisations. I've been hoping that Ceri would appear on here since she went off on Mat Leave last year. I've been hounding her, so I'm really delighted we made this happen at last. Ceri, welcome to the other side.

Accidental Fundraising Career Path

Ceri Sunu 1:27

Thank you so much, Jane. I'm really delighted to be here as well.

Jane Curtis 1:30

So happy that you're here. Could you start by telling me a bit about your charity background and why accidental fundraising?

Ceri Sunu 1:42

Yes. So I say accidental fundraiser because I really was not trying to work in fundraising. It wasn't, it wasn't even, it's gonna sound like quite a silly thing to say actually. I hadn't even really thought about the professional side of fundraising. Um, so my desire to work in the charity sector was very, very deliberate. Um, I knew that I wanted to work for organizations that were focused on making the world a better place. Um and so it was a very deliberate decision to work in the charity sector. However, I became a fundraiser very accidentally at the Children's Society. So in January 2013, oh my gosh, 13 years ago, January 2013, I uh joined the Children's Society on a one-month temporary contract as a fundraising administrator within the regional uh fundraising team. Uh, by the November of that year, I'd become a manager, which was wild and unexpected and not at all what what I thought was going to happen. Um, I actually wanted to leave a couple of times um before that, um, just to go on and do other things because at that time I really had my sights set actually on working in international development. So just before I joined the Children's Society in 2013, I'd actually um sort of the latter end of 2012 had been in Cameroon for a little bit, doing some uh voluntary work with an NGO at them because I thought I saw myself working in international development. I had worked for a UK-based um homeless charity before that, um, but yeah, did not did not expect to stay at the Children's Society beyond that first month, uh, and certainly did not expect to still be there four and a half years later. Um, so that's really, really my journey.

Choosing Entrepreneurship For Freedom

Jane Curtis 3:31

Yeah, amazing. And and so let's fast forward to 2017 when you moved from charity into your kind of own entrepreneurial um, what should we call it, journey. Uh tell me a bit about that. What was the kind of driver for moving out of 9 to 5?

Ceri Sunu 3:49

Yeah, so um it was interesting actually when I was at the Children's Society. So 2013, I would have been, why can't I do that math? 23, 24. Um, so it would have been 23, 24. And um, I just remember just sort of thinking one day, like, do you know what I can't really imagine myself doing this, like working in this way until like sort of quote unquote retirement age, whatever that that is meant to be now. I just thought I can't really see myself doing this, and I think one of the things about me is that as a person, and this probably case for most people, I'm a multifaceted person, I'm interested in lots of different things. Um, you probably know from previous conversations that I am um a minister, um, I'm really passionate about teaching people about Jesus and and supporting people in their journey as Christians. So I do a lot of work in ministry, and for me, it was really important that I could be in a position where I was master of my own time, so that I had the freedom and the flexibility to do those different things that are important to me as a person. Um, so that was really the primary motivation. So I remember when I was about 23, 24, thinking actually, by the time I'm 30, I want to be working for myself. But it really was about being master of my own time.

Jane Curtis 5:14

I love that. I love what you said about being multifaceted. I just think there is there's some there's something really powerful about um accepting that, you know, that I think often when we go into a job, it's like that is that's our identity, that's almost the kind of who we become. And and when we come out of working in a nine to five role into kind of freelance consultancy entrepreneurship, you're you're suddenly open to all of these things that you can do, you know. Um, and for me, there's a real kind of like permission, like a kind of unlearning almost of that kind of identity and sort of acceptance of the fact that I am multifaceted and that there isn't just one way to do things. Obviously, I knew that, but um I yeah, I just found that such a wonderful kind of life experience, you know, that actually I can really embrace those different, yeah, those different parts of me. Um yeah.

Identity Beyond Job Titles

Ceri Sunu 6:11

I think I I think the interesting thing about that though, because I was I was reflecting on it actually ahead of this conversation, is so I've I've been thinking about the challenge of identity and work. Um, so we don't we don't really talk that much about how much of our work does drive our identity. So it's quite easy to introduce yourself and be like, oh yeah, like very often, especially in Western culture, like, oh hey, how are you? Like, so what do you do for a living type thing? Um, and so actually there's there's an ease of explaining and introducing yourself who you are by the job that you do. There's something quite easy and straightforward about it. And actually, what I found is I don't find that easy because for the last however many years, I've had this kind of mishmash portfolio of things that I do that take and standalone don't really explain who I am. So I could like at one point I could have introduced myself to you as oh, well, I'm the assistant music director at my church, but at the same time as doing that, I was the business development manager at an orchestra. At the same time as doing that, I was also a coach and consultant. So trying to explain who I am and my identity actually based on my work is not really a helpful lens to look through in a lot of ways. And I also think as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, you have to be really, really careful about doing that because actually you lose the, for lack of a word, safety of separation between your work and who you are when you become an entrepreneur or a freelancer, and when you're working for yourself, it become it can actually become much more all-consuming. And so I think the whole identity piece in terms of our work is something that you you potentially have to grapple with more when you become a freelancer, you're working for yourself because there's there's less separation, there's less boundaries, there's less um, unless you are intentional about it, there's less of a driver to be like, no, this is the hard line between where my work ends and the rest of me begins. There's also a beauty in that, in that hopefully you've become a freelancer or a business owner doing something that you love and represents your heart and your vocation and your gifting, so you can work in that much more holistic way. But it is a double-sided coin, and you have to be a little bit mindful not to be carried away by that.

Fundraising Skills That Transfer

Jane Curtis 8:31

Yeah, I can I love that. There's always so much wisdom in what you say. You really are such a wise human. Um, I I've been playing around with this idea at the moment about kind of you know it not being like a seesaw, so it isn't like kind of life on one end and work on the other, and that actually one can fuel the other, you know, and that and and that there's some real joy in sort of almost seeing it more like a kind of wheel or like a water water wheel, water mill. Um, I I read that in a book and I was like really struck by that concept, um, just that yeah, but it is you have to be intentional, as you say, because um uh and a lot of the work that I do with with freelancers and consultants now is it's that unlearning piece, you know, of kind of this is how things run in nine to five, it's very different when you work for yourself. And um yeah, can you tell me, Carrie, what did you do you think your charity role taught you about working for yourself?

Ceri Sunu 9:25

So I think on a really practical level, being a fundraiser was probably like the perfect setup because you have to have a lot of resilience as a fundraiser. Um obviously it's a very target-driven role. And I think what's interesting actually about being a fundraiser is that so back in the day, if I saw like a like when I was when I was sort of graduated from unium looking for work, if I saw a role that was like a sales role that says we've got to be target driven, I'd be like, oh no, oh I can't, oh no, like that just sounded really horrible and clinical and transactional. Actually, being a fundraiser is basically the same thing, just with a bit more soul. And so I think the practicality of having to be really strategic, setting a goal, having to be really strategic about how you're gonna get there, having to think really carefully about how you're gonna use your resources, both in terms of time and organizations, money. I think that actually, I think being a fundraiser actually does really cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset. You also have to get used in fundraising to failure, because very often we would set out to do things and they would not work. Like I remember, um, you know, my friend Emily Petty. Um, Emily was my manager at the Children's Society at one point, and we've we've stayed friends over the years, and I remember Emily and I working for ages. Um I mean, honestly, when I think about it now, like a ridiculous amount of time changing one of our fundraising resources, one of our campaigns, and we thought it was gonna be brilliant. It was such a flop, it was an absolute flop. Um, because we had had this vision of what we wanted to communicate to our audience and making this resource work better for that, whereas the audience were like, we just wanted a little collection thing to collect pennies in. We didn't need you to do all this other stuff that you were doing. So I say all of that to say I think if you are when you really look at it, being a fundraiser within an organization, you are, you need to be entrepreneurial, you need to have that resilience and that mindset to keep trying and testing and learning and failing. Um, I think the big difference though is that hopefully if you're in an organization, you're doing that within the safety of a team and not carrying those things on your own. I think what's harder is when you work for yourself, if things don't work, it's much harder because it's just you. Um, but I definitely think it fosters an entrepreneurial mindset and also just practical skills around marketing, being able to write copy, knowing how to tailor a message for an audience, all of those things are really helpful too.

Working With Flow And Rest

Jane Curtis 11:56

Yeah, yeah, completely. Um, so tell me about a typical week, if there is such a thing in your in your business. So I definitely do not have a typical week.

Ceri Sunu 12:06

I don't have a typical week, and and some of that is because of, as you mentioned at the beginning, like me coming out of maternity leave. So literally up until basically last week, I was constantly juggling, trying to do work with having at least one child at home, if not two. Um, so I've got three children, two of whom are uh nursery age, one whom is at school. So I don't have a typical week. A lot of my week was like, okay, I might have like a pocket of time here, like what can I do? So I'm I'm actually on week two as we as we meet meet as we speak of like a bit more freedom of being able to structure things. So is it going? Does it feel good? It feels good, but I tell you what's interesting is I've had to go, well, Ceri, your your excuses are removed now. Ah because now you don't have the thing of like, oh, actually, I might have a little person that's gonna cry for food or whatever they're gonna need in like any minute now. So what's been quite interesting actually for me as well, trying to learn how I work best and giving myself the freedom to go with my energy. Now, don't get me wrong, there are times where you just have to get stuff done, like you actually do just have to get stuff done. But I'm I try really hard these days. Like if I've got like right now, I'm working on a landing page for a new program. I'm I'm taking my time over it because I want to know that once it's done, I'm I'm happy with it and I can put it out there in the world, and it really reflects my voice and my thinking. Um, but I'm not so I'm I want to get it done, but I'm also not trying to like overly force it. So there are times I'm just like, you know what, I'm not in flow right now, so I'm just gonna step away from the desk and do something else. Because I've learned that if I'm not in flow, not only is the work not gonna get done, I'm gonna feel awful about it, it's gonna demotivate me, it's gonna make me even less creative, it's gonna so I just don't force myself to do things. So what I try to do now is set an intention at the start of the week and be really clear on that, okay, what is my one thing? Like, what's my one thing for this week that I need to get done or need to focus on and really hold on to that. Um, because actually, even with my newfound freedom, my littlest ones are at nursery two and a half days a week. I mean, literally, when I leave you today, I've probably got like an hour more of freedom, and then I'm gonna go and get them from nursery and then they're at home the rest of the week. So I'm also learning to be much more realistic and pragmatic about how much I can get done, but then that's also forcing me to really focus on what needs to be done, what's gonna move the needle in the business versus what might feel comfortable, but is actually just busy work.

Jane Curtis 14:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and that piece around kind of being in flow that is so important because it's yeah, I mean, like you say, you can start to sort of feel a bit resentful, demotivated. I also think there's something about the energy that you know comes from being in flow that feeds into your copy and and and you know, your conversations, that energy really for me anyway, I feel that that supersedes anything that I'm actually writing. Um that I've got to be in that kind of energy and that mindset. And if I'm not, it's a sign I need to go for a nap or I need to go and have a walk, you know, and do something else. Yeah, yeah.

Mindset Challenges And Time Poverty

Ceri Sunu 15:21

Oh no, honestly, and I mean, I I also have this like I like it, but I would I can't control it. I do a lot of my best work in the middle of the night. Like the other night I woke up at 1:30 and I just stayed up and I felt amazing because my mind was clear, the world was quiet. Like, I just I mean, I can't, I'd love to do that all the time. Also, I can't, it's not sustainable. I think like the next night I slept loads and loads, obviously, to compensate for it. But I try that's I really try to go with the flow of like where my body's at, where my energy is at. And like you say, one one of the things I really try to do is work from a place of rest, and I'm actually quite vigilant now about recognizing when I'm not in a state of rest. And when I say state of rest, I don't mean physically sitting and doing nothing. I mean when my mind is not at rest, when my emotions are not, when I can feel I'm actually right now being fuelled by anxiety, I'm being fueled by fear. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not doing this, I'm not working from this place or from this position. I will not do it now because it doesn't produce anything good, really. It doesn't produce good fruit. So, yeah, that's one of the things for me is I'm really vigilant about if I can feel, oh my gosh, I'm feeling really anxious about this has to work. Let's let's not do that because we're not gonna produce anything good.

Jane Curtis 16:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah, 100%. Um, tell me about some of the biggest challenges you faced as a business owner.

Ceri Sunu 16:49

Oh gosh, um, biggest challenges, I think for I think on a practical level, it has been the kind of having really big ambitions and not fully having the resources to bring those to life. So whether that's time, whether that's money, um, whether that's my mental capacity, whatever that is. But I think on a on a kind of more emotional level, the biggest challenge has probably been that need to stay um focused and to stay resilient. I think really grappling with a relationship with failure or think or I don't even know if failure is actually the right word, actually. I think let's call it unexpected outcomes. Unexpected outcomes is probably more accurate. Um, and I think really grappling with that sense of a loss of control. So I can I can plan, I can be diligent, I can be strategic, I can do quote unquote everything right. The outcome might not be quite what I was hoping for or what I was expecting. And so there's a couple of different responses to that. One is to say, well, let's just sack it all in, let's just give up. I mean, I do have days when I just can't be bothered now. I just can we just can I turn up in bed and just not try anymore. I do have those moments. Um, or we can say, okay, what are we gonna do now? In light of all this, what are we gonna do now? And I think it was interesting. I came across one of your um emails actually from last year that I hadn't actually opened, where you were talking about not holding things too tightly, and you're saying sometimes we can have a good outcome, it's just not the outcome that we were expecting, and so we can almost ignore the fact that it was a good thing or a successful thing because we didn't orchestrate it exactly the way that we had hoped to. And so I think what I do think the biggest challenge, and I know people talk about mindset a lot, but I do think mindset is the biggest thing, you know. A lot of the time things are not as bad as you think they are, um they're not they're not as catastrophic, it's not it's not as big as you think. It's big to you, obviously, because it's your business, it's your livelihood, it's your passion, but it's actually not that big. Um, and I think the other thing that I've really had to deal with in on that front is my I have a real issue with time poverty. I've realized I constantly feel behind like just in life, but I constantly feel like I should be here by now, I should be doing this by now. Um, you know, I'm very long range, I'm constantly looking to the future to ahead to because of because of all this big vision, but it does mean I end up with a time poverty. And so one of the things that can happen is if I don't get something done in the time this is before in the time frame that I had wanted to, I would get really demotivated, but oh well it's too late now. In all reality, no one is sitting at their desk going, where's Ceri's thing? Yeah no one even knows that no one even knows that I'm thinking about it or what but I had this real thing of like it's too late, it's taking me too long to get it, and I would get really like anxious, and that's that's where that what I talked about before that vigilance against that has come from. It's like no one is sitting around waiting for me to produce the thing that they don't even know that I'm working on. Like, no, no one else is aware of this internal clock or this internal timeline, but I've had to really learn to talk to myself in those moments and be like, can we just can we just simmer down a little bit? Can we be a bit sober-minded about this? Can we can we look at this properly and not get so like angsty? So I do think the mindset stuff is the biggest challenge.

Protecting Attention And Defining Success

Jane Curtis 20:22

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would echo that as well. Um, so what do you think gives you the edge? Because you you you wear many hats, you know, you've got all these plates spinning, like what are the sort of secrets to keeping all of that going and being able to do the thing, your real passion projects as well as all your multiple kind of work projects and your mother project. Um what what how how does that how does that work for you?

Ceri Sunu 20:49

So I think definitely for me, my is you know, my faith. Like I'm I know for me, if I if I haven't spent enough time with Jesus, I I can't do anything good. I need to be, you know, spending time reading my Bible, praying, asking God for wisdom, letting him get like for me, if I if I'm not the moment I try to do everything myself, that's generally where everything tends to tends to nosedive. So if I for me, if that was gonna be my edge, my edge has to be the Lord is Jesus because I I can't as as much no matter how much gifting or talent you might have, there is an end to you, right? We're not we're not limitless, we are we are constrained. Um with that, I think the edge for me uh increasingly unrecognised, and I think this is probably the edge that all freelancers and entrepreneurs need to develop, is that space to pause and to think. So if you're not uh if you're not a believer, you don't believe in God, fine, whatever, but you need to you need to protect your thinking space. And you need to protect your attention. And I think that's the thing about being really vigilant about your attention. We are in an at a time where attention is like the Biggest currency. It is the biggest currency. So I think the edge for any entrepreneur is protect your attention. For me, that looks like spending time with God, spending time in the word. But whoever you are as a freelancer entrepreneur, your edge is going to come from you protecting your attention, making sure you're focusing on the right things. Also being really sure about what you think about things, which sounds like an odd thing to say, but I think we live in a time where if you're not careful, the the constant consumption of content means you can develop thinking and a mindset about things that you inherited from other people, from things that you were listening to. So I think it's really important you protect your attention and you actually protect your thought life and you stay really centered in that. What do you think? Why do you think it? If you are driven by um, you know, you're you're sitting saying, I need to be a multimillionaire, that's cool. But why? Like, why is that important to you? What where where has that measure of success come from? For example, I remember there was a a business coach that I was kind of you know following or looking at his content for a while, and he said some good things. And I remember he was doing this conference, and I looked at the conference speakers, and I was like, I don't want to be like any of these people. Like there's nothing wrong with them. But I was like, I don't actually want these people do not represent who who I want to be as a person in life, like they're very successful entrepreneurs, I respect their success, but I don't want to be like these people. I don't, we don't have the same drivers. Now that doesn't mean that I can't learn anything from them, I can't glean any wisdom from them, but I'm very, very careful about who I allow to influence me and what I allow to influence me. And I think in these times, particularly as freelancers, as entrepreneurs, we have to maintain our edge by really knowing what makes us us, what drives us, and what we think, and what our measures of success are and why.

Networks Support And Interdependence

Jane Curtis 23:58

Yes, yes, yes. I that is yeah, so kind of re uh relevant at the moment because of all the noise and everything that's going on in the world. And I think it's your mindset, is your energy as well. I often think of myself as kind of zipping myself in like one of those big puffy, like Parker jackets with the big hoods that like come right over my face. And like, you know, that so then if these things are hitting me from external forces, you know, they're kind of just bouncing off again. It's like zipping yourself up in that energetic kind of jacket. Um because otherwise you just absorb stuff like a sponge, you know, and it and before you realize it's really affected you, you affected your mind, affected your mood, affected your energy. Um yeah, and you've got to be so strong, you have to be strong, like really, because it's this stuff is coming at you from every angle, right? I mean, I don't tune into the news, for example, but you can't avoid it completely because you'll hear something in the street, maybe, or um, you know, someone will comment on something on your phone or or whatever, and um yeah, so yeah, yeah, it's it's the the over consumption, and um I I'm I keep sort of thinking, you know, I want to be a creator, not a consumer, like that that for me is uh yeah, yeah, 100%. Um, so you talked about um uh the church, obviously that is an extremely important kind of community for you. What other networks and support have you sort of went into since being um working for yourself that you found helpful?

Ceri Sunu 25:37

So um I'll be honest, first of all, I think probably one of my failings, if I look back on it now, is not leaning into networks enough. So I am like hyper-independent, like to a degree that actually is probably not healthy. And so I've had to really learn interdependence. Um, and so I I would say actually that yes, certainly at the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey, I am the kind of person my my disposition is to buckle down and try and do everything on my own. So I've it's something I've definitely had to learn to be more deliberate about. One of my immediate um things or sources of support is I mentioned Emily earlier. So Emily and I, at the beginning of every week and the end of every week, we will send each other WhatsApp voice notes of our intentions for the week for our business in terms of what our focus is, which is a kind of nice kind of um like light space for accountability. Um, and actually what we've both reflected is that there's almost it's not like we're all sitting there wagging the finger at each other going, oh, do you did you do what you're so gonna do? What we've actually found really valuable about that space is there's really power in hearing yourself say what you're planning to focus on and why. And actually, over time, I don't know how we've probably been doing that for over like a year now, but over time, what I found is that our topics of focus have evolved to beyond our business. It'll be to actually this week. I'm really focused on the kids and making sure I'm being intentional about the time that I'm spending with the kids or whatever it is, or supporting our husbands or whatever it might be. And again, it goes back to that whole thing of like we're whole people, we're not just business people, but that's been a really useful um source, and sometimes we will obviously give each other feedback on specific challenges without actually if you thought about this or that, the other. But to be honest, in this season of my life, my biggest network right now is the school mums. Yeah, the school mums, listen, they are they are helping a sister out. I you know, honestly, like that has been one of the most valuable networks for me. So I'm very blessed that my daughter school is really local. She happened to decide that the child in her class she loves the most lives literally around the corner from us. So her best friend literally lives around the corner. So I can just say to her mum, look, can you walk Jessica to school today or can you pick her up or whatever? That for me has been invaluable in this season of my life, you know, even when it's just like I've woken up not as early as I would like to, and she just wants to be able to shower and not like be juggling and like rushing. Like today, I was just like, I just don't want to rush this morning. No, just drink a hot cup of tea, you know? Yeah, what a privilege. Yeah, I just I just want to shower without worrying about having to keep an ear out for screaming children or whatever. So, um, so yeah, so that that to be honest, this season of my life is actually a lifeline, and one of the most valuable, valuable things actually is just a network of not just mums, but people that I can lean upon, particularly when it comes to my children. Um, and I'm again, I'm um we're really lucky that you know we've got in laws and things around as well. But yeah, the the school mums be safe in the day.

Advice On Focus And Perseverance

Jane Curtis 28:50

Um so uh don't know how easy this question is to answer, but with the benefit of kind of what you know now, um, what advice would you have given yourself at the start of your self-employed career? So if you could kind of go back in the time machine and talk to Ceri from 2017, what what would you be saying to her?

Ceri Sunu 29:10

The number one is definitely the networks thing, like lean into your networks. Um, yeah, don't don't try to do it alone. Be really transparent about what you need help with. So if I if I could do it again, because I I should say, having been on this journey since 2017, my current business is not the business that I started with. The business that I started with was sort of just coaching and training. Um, and I if I could go back now, I would be much more transparent about saying to colleagues and people from the children's society and really good relationships would look, this is what I'm doing. Please can you help me get the word out, connect me with people? I just didn't do that. It sounds really obvious, but I didn't do that. Again, it's that hyper-independent disposition thing. So that's number one thing I would do. The second thing is I would uh be really, really clear about what my area of genius is and who I have the uh potential to serve the most. So again, looking back with that first business, a really obvious audience for me to serve was other fundraisers. But I just didn't do that. I was trying to serve anybody and everybody, it didn't make sense. I actually had um, whilst I was at the Children's Society, I had been a volunteer mentor for the small charities coalition. They don't exist anymore, unfortunately, and they closed down a few years ago. So I was I was already mentoring other fundraisers. So again, it's like doy, like that was the most obvious audience of people that I could have served, but I was trying to do, I wasn't focused enough. So I think being really focused about who you can have the most impact on and serve as best as possible. The other thing would then be again, the thing about my relationship with time, um, and also my relationship with failure and like what are my what my measures of success are. And I think my prevailing message to myself would be things are probably gonna take longer than you would like, um, but keep going. Like that would literally be my thing. You know, I it was interesting. I I came across um on Canva some of my like early like designs for social media posts when I first ran my business in 2017, and I was like, this stuff was really good. I was like, why do I stop? And I stopped because I became internally discouraged, not because um anybody said anything to me that was bad, or I just became discouraged and just just stopped. And the irony was of that whole situation in 2017, when I left the children's society set in my coaching business, there weren't really many coaches in general in the UK. You know, coaching was still quite an American thing, you didn't really have that many people marketing themselves as coaches, and particularly not in the fundraising space. Scroll forward to 2020, every man's a coach. I mean, if everybody is a coach, and I don't say that in a in a bad way, obviously, I love coach, I think it's amazing. Everyone was a coach, and I thought, you silly sausage, if you had carried on in 2017 and not given up, by 2020, I would have already had a much bigger profile that would have given me an edge when all these other people came into this space. Whereas now it's like I feel like I'm competing in a field that I've already been in for a long time, but there are there are now so many other voices, it almost doesn't matter. And so I do think that message around perseverance and keeping going, even if you're not seeing immediate fruit, is really, really important.

Jane Curtis 32:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's so like fundraising, isn't it? Like you mentioned earlier, but that that whole thing of like we are not in control of when things kind of when when you get awarded a bid or you know, when you get that donation, like we're not in control of that. And but we carry on making those approaches and we carry on planting those seeds. Um, there's there's so many similarities, I think. Um but you know, when you're new, like you don't know that you don't know what the timeline is or how long some of this stuff takes. And if you're if you're leaning into those um uh business coaches, you know, you might be extremely successful and you sort of see how quick they might have had success, whatever. But it's like comparing apples and bananas, you know, that they're different, and and it and yeah, it's hard to know that context, isn't it, when you're new, when you start. I think the other thing is a lot of those people didn't see success as quickly as we think they did.

Ceri Sunu 33:32

No, probably not. They didn't. The the the business coach I mentioned earlier, his name, if people want to look him up, his name's Nick James. He he's he's a great guy. Great guy. Yeah, no Nick James. So the conference that I was talking about that I didn't go to is expert empires. Yeah, but I remember I went to um oh, it was a training event that he did. This was in this was in 2019, and I remember because my first daughter was about three or four months old. Was she even three months? I don't know. I think she was nine weeks old when I went to this training thing. So this is me always using my mat leaf to try and build my businesses. Um, but I remember the specific training that I attended. He said when he first did it he had eight people in the room. Yeah, now imagine if he'd gone, oh eight, oh well, yeah, or you go, that's eight people that I've just served and given incredible knowledge. And actually, if you serve those eight people really well, they're gonna tell other people about it. And even if they don't, the point is you served eight people with your knowledge. But we might look at that and go, if it's not hundreds of people, not loads of people, it's it's well, what is that? Like, no, I think I think there is something like there's there's a biblical concept that when you if you do well with a little, you will get more, and that's again, I think a mindset we have to have as entrepreneurs. If how are you honoring what you have now? So you want an audience, you think you want an audience. I'm gonna say you think you want, by the way, you think you want an audience, you think you want thousands of followers. Do you know how to steward the followers that you've got now? How are you looking after them? How are you looking after your clients now? So before you say, Oh, I wish I had, I don't know, you might not you have to be careful what you wish for. You might not have the capacity to steward the number of customers or clients or followers that you think you want. So it's really important to learn to honour what you have now and think about how you're treating your current clients, your current customers, your current projects before you kind of get too carried away.

What Must Change In Charities

Jane Curtis 35:26

Yeah, I love that. Yeah. You're so wise. Honestly, every time I have a conversation with you, I take away so much from it. And they and it really stick, they you're such a good storyteller as well. Like they really stick those stories. So um, yeah, I'm very, I'm very grateful for you, Kate. Um final question then, like what changes do you think um we're gonna see in kind of the charity sector? I know you've you're slightly sort of stepped to one side of that now, but um, what are you seeing with people you're talking to working with um that you think things will change this year and how?

Ceri Sunu 36:03

I don't know if it will change this. So I don't know what will change. I'll tell you what I think needs to change quite desperately. And I I am starting to see murmuring. So um I'll talk first of all about the work that I do specifically through Brabble. So, as you mentioned at the beginning, we're an inclusion consultancy, specifically serving the arts, culture, and heritage sector. One of the changes I am starting to see, and we definitely need to see more of, is a maturation of our conversations around diversity and inclusion. So, within the arts and culture sector specifically, but actually, I think this probably does apply across the board. Um, we are moving from a place where people are just running projects, programs, initiatives related to diversity. So, very specific example from our sector would be lots of early career pathways programs and apprenticeships focused on creating a more diverse pipeline. So they might have, for example, um the National Theatre is an example, has a young producers program, and they also have um programs for young technicians. Those some of those programs are also then aimed very specifically at young people from um global majority backgrounds and so on and so forth. Now, those programs are brilliant, but what we're seeing is that it's not leading to embedded inclusion, it's not actually then manifesting in um a diverse workforce for various reasons that I won't go into now because I'll talk for too long. But what I what is clear is that there is a maturation that is needed in our approach to these things and our understanding of inclusion, understand that you can't do a one-off training program or initiative and expect that to manifest into genuine inclusion. And I think that is something that, as the charity sector across the board, I hope, is starting to realise and will realise very often when I talk about my work through Breble, one of the things that people say to me is, Oh, is it only arts and culture that you do? Because everybody needs this, everybody in the charity sector needs this. So I do hope that those more nuanced, intelligent conversations around inclusion will start to happen so that organizations can begin to embed it genuinely beyond sort of one-off um programs and initiatives. The other thing linked to that is to do with more commercial practices, and this is something that I've think the charity sector has been needing for a long time. When I say more commercial practices, what I mean is being much more intelligent about our business modeling and our business strategies. So, again, it's quite a specific thing within the arts and culture sector, but you you see it elsewhere within the charity sector, is this very heavy reliance upon grant funding. Um, so one of the things that we do, we're an inclusion consultancy, but we do do some support around business modeling. And the reason being within the arts and culture sector specifically, the business models have a direct impact on inclusion. Because very often arts and culture, there's like, oh, we're artists, everything's on a shoestring. So they'll often have a lot of uh freelance roles, right? Because we don't want to commit to um salaries, we don't want to commit to all of the tax implications in terms of PA, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But that has a direct impact on inclusion because a lot of freelancers don't have the same rights as employees, even though they are doing a lot of the same work or working the same ways. So, one of the things that we're looking at is how can we encourage organisations to think more commercially about the work that they're doing? How are they packaging up their expertise? A fantastic organization that I met is run by two young women, they're not they're not a massive organization called Calico Theatre. The work that they do is essentially using arts and theatre to combat gender-based violence. Now, they've developed a product, a training product, so they're they're rolling out with like the police forces um around this topic, using um, in part, VR um and immersive technologies. Now, they've said to me themselves, they wouldn't mind me saying this publicly, in all reality, the tech piece is actually quite small. But just having that immersive technology open them up to funding that wouldn't be available to them normally if they were just presenting themselves just as an arts organization. So I open them up. So I think it was funding from Innovate UK, just because of that one tech element. And so I think being much more savvy and much more um shrewd about how we're packaging up the expertise that we have as charities. I was working with another organization who again arts-based, but when we were having a conversation, we were talking about um the organization's beneficiaries. So generally, we think of the beneficiaries as the people, the immediate people that you're working with or serving. And then the lady I was working with had this light bulb moment where she said, actually, the police force and the probationary service are a beneficiary of our work because the work that we do um both prevents people from offending and also stops re-offending. So actually, no longer are the beneficiaries just the people that we're working with, doing these arts and drama-based things with. Actually, we're understanding what we are doing is benefiting so many other stakeholders and parties. And it left her knowing actually, we can package up our expertise and our offering in a completely new way. So now we can start actually saying, can we commission for work? Can we can we enter a procurement process as a supplier who has a model that we know works because we've been doing it for ages, but we haven't been thinking about it in this slightly more commercial way. So, one of my hopes is that charities will start to commercialize their practice more. I know it does happen already in some measure, but I think it's really important that they do that in order for the sector to survive. Earlier, I mentioned that actually the biggest currency right now is attention. Very often, certainly when I was a fundraiser, we used to talk about uh competition in terms of other charities. In all reality, as a charity, you are competing with everything. Everything and anything that your donors are consuming and engaging with is your competition. Their the user journey that they have when they're opening their bank account is your competition because it sets an expectation for their user journey when they're making a donation to you or signing up to an email, whatever it is. Everything that is capturing their attention is your competition. So if as a sector we don't start becoming more savvy and sharper in our practices, we are going, we're not going to survive. So those are my hopes for the sector. I think that the final thing on that front, again, then is to do with workforce and the benefits that we offer. Certainly, when I was a fundraiser, if you wanted to work flexibly, I mean, I remember I wanted to work from home like one or two days, literally just to get my head down and do my work. Because I was like, when I come into this office, people talk, they talk to me too much. They talk to me too much. I had to almost, it was like you almost had to put in a business case to work from home for like one or two days. And again, it's that kind of slight poverty mindset of oh, but if they work from home, we don't know what they're doing. If I work from home, I'm gonna get more done than when I come into this office. So what I ended up doing was just moving to another part of the building, I would hide. I'd just say to my team and just look, I'm I'm here, but I'm not here, nobody talk to me. So, but I I use that as an example to say that I hope charities will start to be more trusting with their workforce and recognize that fleck more flexible ways of working is actually going to be beneficial to the organization, even just in terms of the talent that they attract. Yeah, um, you know, one of the things that we do in our organization as Brabble as a consultancy is look at inclusive recruitment. You have no idea how much a flexible offering, how much of a difference that can make in terms of who you attract and who you're able to retain.

Jane Curtis 43:46

Yeah.

Brabble Links And Recruitment Bootcamp

Ceri Sunu 43:46

Um, so those are the things that I I don't know if they will change this year, but these are the things that I feel need to at least start to change if the sector is gonna is gonna continue to thrive.

Jane Curtis 43:58

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so if people listening are like, ooh, I want to know more about Brabble, where can I find out more about Ceri? Where where do people find out about you? Are you on are you on a LinkedIn?

Ceri Sunu 44:12

I'm gonna fight with LinkedIn. So they keep they keep shadow burning my account. So I'm gonna fight with LinkedIn. But the best place to go uh if you want to hear more from us and particularly more on our expertise around inclusion is actually our YouTube channel. So if you go into YouTube and look up at Brabble Consulting, there's a lot of information that we share there for organizations around how they can make their workplaces more inclusive.

Jane Curtis 44:36

Oh, amazing. Is there anything else that you want to tell us to yeah, promote while while you've got the opportunity? You mentioned a landing page that you're working on. Is there something there that's coming soon?

Ceri Sunu 44:48

Yes, so at the moment, and this this is primarily for arts and culture, but I might I might segue into other things if the interest is there. We're we're um launching a new program, which is essentially a boot camp program supporting organizations to make their recruitment processes more inclusive. So, what we tend to find is that a lot of organizations are genuinely struggling in that they have these you know great intentions, these grand commitments around making their workforce more diverse and more inclusive. What they don't really have is a strategy. So you have the typical thing of uh we strongly encourage applications from people from all backgrounds and blah blah blah blah. Um, but you're not actually getting those applications, those commitments aren't actually converting um candidates into applicants. So, what we do is we really support organizations to build out a repeatable, scalable recruitment process that can be used again and again and again, but it has inclusion baked into it from the beginning. Um, so that program, the next cohort will start on the 20th of April. Um, but applications for that will close uh the end of March, the 31st of March. So I think I've shared a link with you for that. Um, but yeah, people can can look that up. Um, and particularly for an arts and culture organization, I would welcome your application. If you're not an arts and culture organization, but you're like, we really need help with this, then then let's have a conversation. Uh, because I am passionate about the section and I am obviously passionate about inclusion.

Jane Curtis 46:16

Amazing. Oh, Ceri, thank you so much. This has been a wonderful. I don't know how long we've gone for. I've just lost time entirely. Um, thank you. I'm I'm really grateful. We were able to make this happen. Um I can stop hounding you now to come and uh I hope you don't stop hounding me.

Ceri Sunu 46:35

I like being hounded by you. Okay, that's cool.

Closing And How To Get Help

Jane Curtis 46:39

And that's a wrap on another episode of the other side. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider sharing it with a colleague who might be thinking about their own freelance journey or leave a review. And if you haven't already, make sure to subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes. You can find all the links and resources we mentioned today in the show notes. And if you recognize you want more support to build or grow your freelance business, check out the charity freelancing course, which will take you from feeling stuck to confidently thriving as a successful freelancer or founder. It's a self-paced program designed specifically to help charity professionals launch their life-changing and profitable freelance careers by breaking free from the employee mindset and embracing the abundant world of business ownership. For more information and to sign up, head to my website, janecurtisevents.com. Until next time, keep exploring what's possible on the other side.